


Inexplicably and without method

by tree



Category: Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Genre: F/M, I can't believe I got to reference Maurice Blanchot in a fic, Literary Theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree/pseuds/tree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jules asks Karen to lecture to one of his classes. This is that story. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inexplicably and without method

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emiline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emiline/gifts).



Unlike Harold Crick, Jules Hilbert was not at all as she'd imagined him. Which, Karen supposed, made a great deal of sense, as Harold was in some way her creation and Jules was not. Still, it was somewhat jarring to finally meet someone whom she felt she had known for years and find him so very different.

He was shorter than she expected, for one thing. And he wore three-piece suits and went barefoot -- often at the same time -- both of which she found unironicly charming. He was exceptionally easy to talk to. This was, perhaps, because he did so much of the talking himself. Oddly enough it did not feel intrusive or a burden the way the conversation of other people so often did. When he listened, he truly did listen. It was simply that his brain seemed to operate at higher than usual speeds. Or perhaps it was simply all the caffeine.

In any event, he was intelligent and insightful, and she found his speaking voice oddly soothing.

At the end of their first meeting, during which he had pronounced her new ending 'not bad', he scrawled his telephone number on a scrap of paper and gave it to her. She didn't like to tell him that she regarded telephones as a vile, if necessary, evil and that their shrill bleating made her feel hunted. Or that she never telephoned anyone herself if she could help it.

But she loved his letters. And in the short course of a few afternoon hours she'd grown rather fond of the man in person. She simply hadn't the heart to refuse his tattered offer. So she took his number, folded it, and stuck it in her pocket, where she assumed that, like all things ending up in her pockets, she would forget about it and it would disintegrate in the wash.

It stubbornly refused to be forgotten.

After a few days she discovered she'd been using it as a bookmark. The paper had softened around the edges from the repeated friction of her fingers and the ink was lightly smudged. An unconscious habit developed whereby she would rub the scrap between her thumb and forefinger as she was reading. It became a sort of worry stone. She pretended she hadn't noticed.

 

❡

 

The first time she called him was as an act of self defense. Penny was brandishing notecards in a rainbow of hues and saying something about 'brainstorming', so Karen picked up the phone and shouted, "I cannot speak with you right now because I am on the phone." 

At the time it didn't occur to her that it was rather odd how she managed to dial the number from memory.

He didn't answer so she left what was, on reflection, possibly a rather strange message. Thus began her relationship with his answering machine. At first her messages were short and a little stilted, but after a few days they became longer and decidedly less formal. She gave up announcing herself and the preliminary greetings altogether and simply launched into her train of thought as soon as the beep sounded. What followed was generally something like this:

> "The question is, _if_ Harold's death is _not_ , after all, the culmination of his life, what is? If he doesn't die on page 426 he subsequently can't be reborn on page one in an endless repetition, so what does his life mean? Indeed, what, in this context, does _death_ mean?"

And then she would hang up.

She told herself it was a writing exercise of a sort. She told Penny the same thing. 

"After all, it's not as if he can call me back," she said. "He hasn't got my phone number."

Penny simply looked at her. Disapprovingly, Karen thought.

"What?" she said.

"You realise this is very strange behaviour, don't you?"

"I thought you'd be happy. You're the one who's always after me to go out and meet people."

"Yes, so you can socialise, have a life. Talking to someone's answering machine isn't socialising. It's monologueing."

"That isn't even a word."

"Well it should be because that's what you're doing."

Karen glared and lit a cigarette.

 

❡

 

Penny continued her campaign to make Karen quit smoking. Strategically placed boxes of nicotine patches and packs of gum would appear regularly, seemingly out of nowhere. "Ah," Karen would say with feigned surprise, "I see we've been visited by the nicotine fairies again." She would then promptly light another cigarette. Even if she was already smoking one.

The trouble was that she _did_ seem to be smoking less these days. Her brief trips to the convenience store were becoming more infrequent. It was almost as if she were simply forgetting to smoke.

She pretended not to notice that, too. 

 

❡

 

Time passed, as time is wont to do. It was filled with writing and not writing, smoking and not smoking, and talking to Jules Hilbert's answering machine. Then, one day, she received a letter. 

 

Dear Karen,

May I call you Karen? I feel as if we've progressed to that point since I now have several hours of your voice recorded on my voicemail. Not that I'm complaining -- far from it. It's just that I'd like the opportunity to respond. 

I'm enclosing my email address and my home number. Now it's your turn.

 

Hopefully,

Jules Hilbert

 

She was immensely pleased by his correct use of 'hopefully'.

"Most people these days use it as a sentence adverb," she said to Penny, "but its original meaning is 'in a hopeful manner'." She touched the page next to the word -- handwritten. He always sent her handwritten letters. "Rather a lovely sentiment, don't you think?"

Penny crossed her arms. "So would it be correct to use it in this sentence? Your publisher is waiting hopefully for you to finish this book."

"You have no poetry in your soul," Karen said.

 

The next day they went shopping for a computer.

"Why don't you just call him and actually talk to _him_ this time?" Penny wanted to know.

"Because," said Karen.

"Because? That's it? That's your reason?"

"Because there is something very intimate about sharing written words with someone. Because until very recently our relationship, if you could call it that, has consisted solely of written words. Because I dislike telephones. Because speaking to someone on the telephone, divorced of the context of sight, sharing only voice and breath, is a different kind of intimacy and I'm not ready for that yet!"

They were standing in an obscenely brightly lit store surrounded by gadgets and devices and signs bearing acronyms and esoteric terms and really it was all a bit much for Karen. She felt uncomfortably vulnerable and wished desperately for a cigarette. 

Penny regarded her with what appeared to be a certain understanding. "All right then," she said. "Let's buy you a computer."

 

In the end, it was all rather painless. Penny navigated her way through words like gigabytes and RAM ("Baa," said Karen) and a seemingly endless parade of numbers with élan. It wasn't as though Karen knew nothing of computers at all. She'd just never had an interest in owning one.

They brought the flat little box home and Karen watched as Penny pushed buttons and typed and clicked her way through an array of screens.

When it was all set up and Penny had shown her the basics of operating the beast, Karen said, "I promise never to refer to you as my imposition again."

"Your imposition? When have you ever referred to me as that?"

"In my head. And I promise not to do it anymore."

"You know, you could just say 'thank you, Penny'."

"Thank you, Penny."

"You're welcome."

Karen smiled. There was a brief movement of some of the muscles near Penny's mouth. Karen supposed that would have to do.

 

❡

 

1:53 PM  
From: Karen Eiffel  
To: Jules Hilbert  
Subject: Now what?

This blinking thing is very dire.  
I do not like machines that seem impatient with me.

 

3:03 PM  
From: Jules Hilbert  
To: Karen Eiffel  
Subject: Re: Now what?

Try viewing it as encouraging rather than impatient.

 

9:48 PM  
From: Karen Eiffel  
To: Jules Hilbert  
Subject: Re: Now what?

Does this mean you won't be writing me any more letters?

 

10:07 PM  
From: Jules Hilbert  
To: Karen Eiffel  
Subject: Re: Now what?

Do you want me to keep writing you letters?

 

10:08 PM  
From: Karen Eiffel  
To: Jules Hilbert  
Subject: Re: Now what?

Yes.

 

❡

 

Emails were like telegrams, she decided; brief and immediate. And in some ways reading them was like reading a play. There was an absence of the traditional cues for inflection and tone that came from conversation, mimicked in novels and other written forms, only without even stage directions. Stripped of any context, the words could take on all their multiplicity of meanings, transcending them, until they were transformed from units of meaning back into the mere signifiers that they were.

She mentioned this idea to Jules' answering machine the next time she rang.

 

❡

 

8:32 AM  
From: Jules Hilbert  
To: Karen Eiffel  
Subject: ?

How would you feel about doing a guest lecture for one of my classes?

 

8:34 AM  
From: Karen Eiffel  
To: Jules Hilbert  
Subject: Re: ?

No.

❡

 

"He wants me to do a guest lecture for one of his classes."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Are you going to?"

"I said no."

Penny nodded. "That's probably for the best," she said mildly.

Karen frowned and tried to think of a retort. Smoked furiously when she failed.

 

❡

 

1:06 PM  
From: Karen Eiffel  
To: Jules Hilbert  
Subject: Re: ?

What would I have to talk about?

 

1:12 PM  
From: Jules Hilbert  
To: Karen Eiffel  
Subject: Re: ?

Anything you want.

 

2:31 PM  
From: Karen Eiffel  
To: Jules Hilbert  
Subject: Re: ?

When?

 

4:07 PM  
From: Jules Hilbert  
To: Karen Eiffel  
Subject: Re: ?

Here's my class schedule. Pick a day and a time.

 

❡

 

"Penny, this email has something called an attachment. It sounds parasitic. What do I do?"

 

❡

 

She called him at home that evening.

"All right."

"All right, what?"

"All right, I'll do it."

"You will?"

"Yes, I just said so."

"Wonderful."

She could hear the smile in his voice. It made her smile too. Silently, though.

"I'm glad you called," he said after a pause.

"Well," she said.

"How's the book coming?"

"You sound like Penny."

"Who's Penny?"

"My assistant. My publisher foisted her on me because the book was taking too long."

"And now it's taking even longer."

"Exactly."

Somehow the conversation continued easily from there. Mostly on his side, but then she supposed it was only fair since she'd been monopolising his answering machine for weeks. And she liked to listen to him. He made her laugh. 

She was curled up in the corner on the cold floor, in the dark, with a telephone cradled between her shoulder and jaw. It was as if she'd slipped into an alternate universe where her life had turned into some sort of teen melodrama.

"Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?" he asked. His voice was slightly scratchy from hours of talking. She pretended not to notice how it made her toes curl.

"Yes," she said. "I think I would."

 

❡

 

"So where are you going on your date?" Penny asked.

"It's not a date. We're having dinner. Just two people eating a meal together."

"He asked you to have dinner with him?"

"Yes."

"After he gave you his home phone number and you spent several hours talking last night?"

"Yes."

"It's a date."

Karen ignored both Penny's statement and the slightly fluttery feeling it put in her stomach. "Perhaps we'll go to McDonald's. He's a literature professor, remember. It's not a very lucrative career."

Penny rolled her eyes. "He likes you. I will bet you ten pages that there will be cloth napkins and candles on the tables."

"You can't be serious."

"Afraid you'll lose the bet?"

"I am not afraid."

"Good. You'll write ten pages by the end of the week if I win."

"And if I win?"

"I won't mention the book for the rest of the week."

"Deal."

"And wear a dress tonight," Penny called as she left the room.

"You are not the boss of me!" Karen shouted after her. There was no response. "I was going to wear one anyway," she grumbled.

 

❡

 

Unfortunately, Penny was right. There were cloth napkins and candles and even a pianist.

"Ten pages," Karen muttered as the maître d' seated them.

There were menus and a wine list. They ordered. Jules was unusually quiet, his watchful gaze making her fidget with the edge of the tablecloth. It really was a date. _Help_ , she thought. Where was her own narrator when she needed one? What would she have Harold do in this situation? And that reminded her:

"What do you think of death?"

Jules blinked and raised his eyebrows. "In general, or did you have someone particular in mind?"

"As the topic of my lecture, I mean. Having killed eight people, I feel I'm something of an expert."

The sommelier chose that moment to return with the wine. With the discretion of someone trained in the best restaurants, he kept his expression politely disinterested as he poured.

She continued her train of thought as he left. "Have you read anything by Maurice Blanchot?"

"Not recently. I'm surprised you have."

"Why are you surprised?"

"It's just not the sort of thing I imagine people read for fun."

"I suppose it depends on your definition of fun, but I read a quote of his somewhere that I thought was lovely and I wanted to read more."

"What was the quote?"

"I can't remember exactly, but it was something about poetry being 'the passionately unfurled space' between the speaker and the reader. I thought it a beautiful expression. Anyway, I managed to track down some translations of his writing and had a bit of a read. Very dense stuff. It was like trying to look at something out of the corner of your eye because you can't see it properly if you look at it straight on. If I tried to think too hard about what he was saying it was an appalling mess, but if I just allowed myself to read without thinking I felt as though I caught a glimmer of it."

"That's an interesting way to describe it. I think a lot of theory tends to be needlessly obfuscatory. It's like a members only club to keep the riffraff out."

"Riffraff like me?"

"Oh no, definitely not you." He smiled at her over the candle, over the cloth napkins, over the pianist, and his eyes crinkled around the edges. _Oh dear_ , she thought as the fluttery feeling returned, and scrunched her toes inside her shoes.

"Well," she went on, "I've been thinking about his ideas on death in relation to Harold. Blanchot essentially says that life is defined by the possibility of death. We are alive, and we know we're alive, because we can die. The obvious inverse of that is when there's _no_ possibility of death, we're not alive. Or, as he says, 'death as the impossibility of dying'. I worry that by relinquishing Harold's death I'm actually condemning him somehow. If the book ends without his death, does that mean he _cannot_ die?"

"Maybe in a purely literary sense, but Harold isn't purely literary."

"No, that's true."

"So, Harold and death?"

"Well. There's a lot of work to do."

The food arrived and she at last had the distraction of eating to occupy her. Conversation came more easily as Jules told her stories about his classes and his students.

"Isn't it very dull teaching the same things over and over again, reading the same essays?"

He put down his knife and fork. "No. There's always something new to learn with each class. There's always at least one person who makes it worthwhile. And each text changes for me in the context of the people I'm teaching. The experience is similar, but never exactly the same."

Earnest, sincere, passionate. Those were the words she would have used to describe him had she been writing this scene. And she would have come up with something witty for her own character to say. Or anything at all, really.

He picked up his knife and fork again. "Which isn't to say that I don't sometimes want to strangle my students. But I prefer not to incriminate myself." And he grinned. Her mouth betrayed her by grinning back.

They talked more, through dinner, over dessert and coffee. They talked for so long that they were the last people to leave the restaurant and the formerly bland-faced staff had begun to look distinctly disgruntled.

They stepped out onto the quiet street, in the clear, cold night. Their breath made little puffs of cloud in the air. Karen suddenly realised she hadn't even thought of wanting a cigarette for hours.

"So this is good night, then," said Jules.

She pretended not to notice the little pang of disappointment she felt. "Yes, I suppose it is. I had a lovely time. Thank you for inviting me."

"Thank you for coming."

They were smiling foolishly at one another. No one moved.

Jules nodded as though agreeing with something she'd said. "And I'll see you next week. In class."

"Yes."

"I look forward to it."

"So do I."

He leaned in then, and her heart was racing and her stomach was fluttering and just how old _was_ she? And he kissed her very gently, very sweetly on the cheek.

"Good night, Karen," he said, and her toes curled.

_Oh dear._

**Author's Note:**

> The actual Blanchot quote is "a poem is only a poem when it becomes the shared privacy of someone who writes and of someone who reads, the passionately unfurled space of a mutual conflict between speaker and hearer" from _Mallarme and Literary Space_. Blanchot's ideas about death come from _Literature and the Right to Death_. I can provide proper bibliographic information upon request!


End file.
